This story is almost too bizarre to be true. Stephen Harper's government has created a Code of Conduct for librarians and archivists which forces them to clear all personal and (potentially) public comments with their supervisors. It also creates a snitch line so anyone who makes a personal comment that can be taken as critical of the Harper government can be identified and disciplined.
Here is an article about the new measures. To be more specific, and this adds insult to the injury, the Harper government made the LAC come up with its own Code following the Governments instructions. It's more humiliating when you have to do it to yourself.
I'd like to express my sympathy to all the librarians and archivists employed by the Canadian government. I wouldn't want to work for Stephen Harper. And if I did, even in a peripheral and disputable way (disputable since they are employed by the government of Canada as an institution not by any particular government of Canada), I would like to retain the freedom of speech guaranteed me by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to criticize him. He is an asshole. I can say it, you should be able to as well.
I'd also like to remind all the librarians and archivists -SNITCHES GET STITCHES!
First the Harper government broke up and sold off priceless pieces of Canadian history to private collectors and now it wants to read the librarians' Facebook pages. It's obscene.
This is just the latest move in Stephen Harper's drive to limit Canadian democracy. It's one that I take personally. I love books. I love libraries. And I have a thing for librarians but that's not the point. Conservative politics is always anti-intellectual, one of the reasons I think the term "Right wing think tank" is so funny. Let's take a minute to list the ways this new Code of Conduct is offensive and possibly illegal.
- The government has no right to prevent free speech, no matter who is talking.
- The government has no right to demand party loyalty from government employees. The next government might be Liberal - public employees are expected to serve regardless of party affiliation. Party affiliations and personal politics are irrelevant to job performance.
- The group affected by this Code of Conduct was created for the purpose of disseminating information. And it has been doing a very good job - from helping individuals with genealogies to talking to school kids about organizing and presenting information. No wonder the Government is afraid; who could stop a coalition of genealogists and school kids?
- The government cannot prevent anyone from entering debate in a democratic society. Debate is the basis of a democratic society.
- Picking on librarians and archivists is lame. It reveals the extent to which this government are nothing more than school yard bullies. Soldiers "owe a duty of loyalty to the government" but the Harper government isn't trying to prevent them from Tweeting, blogging, or Facebooking. Soldiers are scarier than librarians.
- What possible purpose could this Code of Conduct have that the people of Canada shouldn't be worried about? It's not like the librarians are giving away state secrets. They are educated people whose professional lives are dedicated to the preservation of culture. And yet. Harper's government is hyper-sensitive to criticism of any kind.
- A "snitch line" is despicable. This is particularly true about a government with a notoriously poor record when it comes to actual whistle blowers. If any skilled hacker(s) read this, I think it would be a wonderful idea to open the contents of the snitch line (including names and addresses of the snitches) to the public.
- The Code identifies certain activities (speaking in public and blogging for example) as "high risk". High risk to whom? In what conceivable way is a librarian talking to a grade three class "high risk"? They might get interested in book lernin and that would be terrible.
Stephen Harper is a sneaky, sweater wearing, mean spirited jack ass. I'm not going to call him a fascist but he's a fascist. Fucking with the personal lives of some of the most useful and harmless people in society is a shitty thing to do. Of course, they Government obviously thinks they are not harmless. And that makes me wonder (even more) about the Government.
I'm trying to think of a really deadly insult to end this with. I know there has got to be a real killer sentence that shows precisely how absurd and subversive this Code of Conduct is and I know someone else will think of it before me and that will make me mad. But all I can think of, the most cutting thing I can say to Prime Minister Harper is this:
Mr. Prime Minister, my mom doesn't like you.
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